HK Geographic 7

Blooming Plants in Hong Kong

09/11/2017

劇情

Blooming Plants in Hong Kong

Flowers bloom and wither. It is a natural phenomenon in life cycle and species evolution. Surprisingly, blooming plants, an advantageous variety in the plant kingdom with more than three hundred thousand species worldwide, have over three thousand species in this tiny Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has a long history of botanical studies. Ever since the inception of Hong Kong, many notable botanists have begun specimen collection activities in the local area. Moreover, every time a new species is discovered, they would name it after Hong Kong.

Nowadays, there are still many plant enthusiasts, such as Human IP, the author of “Journal of Native Flora in Hong Kong” (香港原生植物手札). She loves to search for Hong Kong’s native flora and even meticulously documents the benediction bestowed by the Mother Nature upon Hong Kong through her drawings.

Stephan and Pankaj are botanists who have come all the way from overseas to Hong Kong for studying orchids. With their curiosity and passion to orchids, they unassumingly devote themselves to the cultivation and conservation of local orchids. Meanwhile, a group of experts in botany and agroforestry from Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) are endeavouring to collect and raise seedlings of rare native plant species in Hong Kong.

集數

The Distantly Close Water

Wetlands consist of different habitats, such as swamps, mudflats, fish ponds, reed beds, etc. These habitats provide shelters for different species, and help Hong Kong breed a multitude of species. The swathe of wetlands located at the Deep Bay in Northern New Territories even attracts many precious migratory birds to make their annual arrival every fall and winter to rest.

Pui O on Lantau Island has one the largest freshwater marshes in Hong Kong, which not only provides an ideal living environment for wetland plants, frogs, fishes, etc., but also provides functions such as water purification and flood control. However, such freshwater marshes in Hong Kong are often filled and leveled, or used for housing development.

Producer: Carrie Wong
Assistant Producer: Mandy Kwok

A Tale of Fireflies

To city people, fireflies are both romantic and distant. Most people have got to know them only through animations while they have hardly ever got near these mysterious tiny insects. In fact, there are almost 30 known species of the firefly in Hong Kong!

Those fireflies that dance in the night are already in the adult stage, which is the end of their life cycle; these insects can live for a few to ten odd days. In their short-lived adult stage, they try their best to mate; the light in their lower abdomen is designed as a signal for communication between the two sexes. However, the light pollution produced by humans may disrupt their communication and reproduction. Moreover, the fast-paced development in rural areas is highly threatening to their habitat.

A lot of people believe that fireflies are aquatic insects that can only be seen in the summer. In fact, most of the fireflies we see in Hong Kong are terrestrial, and the adults of some species are active only in the autumn and winter; for example, the Diaphanes lampyroides, wearing “feathers” and a “velvet armour” on its body, is a species that is active only between October and December. Mr YIU Vor, the president of Hong Kong Entomological Society and Mr Mark MAK Siu-fung, the chairman of Firefly Conservation Foundation Limited, will take our production team out to unveil the mystery of fireflies.

Producer: Michelle Tang
Assistant Producer: Katty Cheung

Centenary Trees

Trees nourish everything, with every part of them from canopies to branches and leaves, all serve as the habitats and food for insects and avian. Banyan trees are the most visible tree type in Hong Kong. Their tenacious vitality allows them to take root and grow vertically on walls, which then transform into the exotic stonewall trees. Banyan trees disperse their seeds through avian faeces and rely on fig wasps, a less than 2-mm-long insect, to pollinate.

The Chinese banyan (ficus microcarpa) perched at the Kowloon Park is the oldest tree in the urban area of Hong Kong; and the Camphor tree (cinnamomum camphora) in She Shan Tsuen of Lam Tsuen is one of the oldest trees in the rural area of Hong Kong. It is estimated that both trees are approximately 400 years old. There is also a large stretch of Fung Shui Woods located in She Shan Tsuen where the Camphor tree is situated, which once gave She Shan Tsuen the reputation of “Butterfly Paradise”. However, such centenary trees and Fung Shui Woods are waning along with the development in rural area.

Producer: Carrie Wong
Assistant Producer: Mandy Kwok

Listen to the Sounds inof Hoi Ha Wan

Hoi Ha Wan is one of the sea bays in Hong Kong with a higher coral coverage; its bio-diversity is comparable to that in the Caribbean. The coral, looking like a stone, is in fact the dwelling place of various marine organisms. While the beach along the coast of Hoi Ha Wan is also the dwelling place of large number of tiny organisms. Relying on the nourishment from the sea for their growth, they meet the daily challenge of high tide and low tide day by day. Besides, there are the mangroves, the unsung heroes for the elegant Hoi Ha Wan!

The different habitats of these organisms are closely related to each other, so are we and the nature. However, busy coastal development and excessive human interference seem to have turned the humans into an accomplice when it comes to the question of disturbance to marine ecology. If we want our next generation to be able to witness the beauty of Hoi Ha Wan the way we can, maybe we should carefully listen to the sound of Hoi Ha Wan.

Producer: Kay Kwok
Assistant Producer: Katty Cheung

The Flight of the Bee

In recent decades, bees around the world have been reported to disappear massively. How about the bees in Hong Kong? We visit different bee farms to collect information about the two major bee species in Hong Kong, the local Asian honey bee and the exotic Italian bee. Although the two are threatened by brood-parasites and wasps respectively, with the help of beekeepers, they can still survive. Their real enemy is actually global warming and urban development.

Producer: Cathy Chu
Assistant Producer: Katty Cheung

Fungi under the Microscope

Mushrooms are macro-fungal sporocarps, and fungus is categorised separately from the animal and plant kingdoms in the biosphere. According to statistics, there are approximately 150 species of macro-fungi in Hong Kong, including the auricularia polytrich, the cute-looking porcini mushrooms, the amanita, the king of poisonous mushrooms, etc.

When ganoderma spore develops on the wounds of trees, it accelerates the decomposition process, which plays an essential role in the succession in forest ecological system. Fungi, the nature’s decomposer, has the important duty of decomposing organic matters on the Earth, so that carbon and nitrogen could be released back to the land and put into use again.

Although the poisonous amanita can cause liver and kidney failure after intake, it happens to form symbiotic relationship with trees which the trees depend upon for their healthy existence, as the hyphae of symbiotic fungi can aid in more efficient uptake of water and nutrients, which serves as an indicator of forest health. Therefore, an arcane relationship is shared among trees, human and fungi. It is thus unwise to define between helpful and harmful fungi arbitrarily.

Producer: Michelle Tang
Assistant Producer: Cindy Chan

The Oblivion Land

Agriculture was once a booming industry in Hong Kong, with local produce such as See Mew (long grain rice) and vegetables gaining fame in Southern China. However, massive rural labour force moved to the urban area with the transformation of econometric model, which has led to a decline in agriculture. Therefore, many farmland and villages have gradually been left to desolation.

Lai Chi Wo located in the northeast of the New Territories is a fertile land with abundant water supply. It was once strewn across with terraced fields, with golden spikes of rice everywhere at harvest. However, this place was still no match for the vicissitudes of time. Since the 70’s in the last century, villagers have begun to migrate overseas. Farmland has been dilapidated in time, and most of the houses in the villages have also been deserted. Since 2013, the University of Hong Kong has worked together with environmental groups in an attempt to grow rice again in co-operation with returning villagers in Lai Chi Wo, in the hope of reviving this place through agricultural rehabilitation. As a result, not only has this attracted more people back to Lai Chi Wo, but it has also provided ample crops to serve as food supply. Lai Chi Wo has also turned into a recuperative place for migratory birds in the course of their long-haul travel, with the watercourses in farmland transformed into a fairyland for a myriad of amphibians and reptiles.

Producer: Leo Lai
Assistant Producer: Mandy Kwok

Horseshoe Crab, the Living Fossil

Natural selection is a key mechanism of evolution. Every species evolves in relation to the change in their environment. If a species cannot cope with the change, it heads towards extinction. However, the horseshoe crab, which began to exist on the earth even before the dinosaur and which has been reproducing itself over four hundred thousand million years, has not changed much in terms of shape and size. Able to survive up till present, it is worthy of its nickname: “the living fossil”.

The horseshoe crab is actually not a crab, but a close relative of the spider and the scorpion. Young horseshoe crabs live in shallow coastal waters, feeding on worms and crustaceans. They have to undergo several times of moulting over a period of about ten years before they can grow into full-size horseshoe crabs. Having a strange appearance, it is in fact a good friend of the human species. Its blood, processed, can become a reagent, to be widely used in medicines and sterility testing for medical purposes. The high-grade chitin from its shell can even be used in the production of surgical suture, and also in the treatment of sewage through adsorption of suspended materials and toxic organic substances in water.

However, in China where preservation laws are lacking, the good things about horseshoe crabs have turned them into the victims of massive killing, causing their number to dwindle. In Hong Kong, urbanisation and human interference are the culprits for the dwindling space for horseshoe crabs’ survival.

Producer: Yu Chi Ling, Christine
Assistant Producer: Katty Cheung

Blooming Plants in Hong Kong

Flowers bloom and wither. It is a natural phenomenon in life cycle and species evolution. Surprisingly, blooming plants, an advantageous variety in the plant kingdom with more than three hundred thousand species worldwide, have over three thousand species in this tiny Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has a long history of botanical studies. Ever since the inception of Hong Kong, many notable botanists have begun specimen collection activities in the local area. Moreover, every time a new species is discovered, they would name it after Hong Kong.

Nowadays, there are still many plant enthusiasts, such as Human IP, the author of “Journal of Native Flora in Hong Kong” (香港原生植物手札). She loves to search for Hong Kong’s native flora and even meticulously documents the benediction bestowed by the Mother Nature upon Hong Kong through her drawings.

Stephan and Pankaj are botanists who have come all the way from overseas to Hong Kong for studying orchids. With their curiosity and passion to orchids, they unassumingly devote themselves to the cultivation and conservation of local orchids. Meanwhile, a group of experts in botany and agroforestry from Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) are endeavouring to collect and raise seedlings of rare native plant species in Hong Kong.

Who Shaped the Land?

The earliest rocks in Hong Kong have approximately 400 million years of history. The geological structure in Hong Kong was more stable back in those days when the rocks were located in the coastal lake district on the edge of the Mainland. Around 160 million years ago in the Jurassic period, Hong Kong had its most active geological movement where volcanos were strewn across the periphery of Hong Kong. 140 million years ago, an ash layer of over four hundred metres thick was deposited by an enormous volcanic eruption. During the cooling period of the ash, internal expansion caused by the volumetric contraction led to dispersion of the entire ash layer, which gave rise to the hexagonal volcanic columns juxtaposed vertically, and this is indeed the uniqueness of volcanic columns in the Hong Kong Geopark.

When people come across with grotesque rocks, they are always amazed by such god-sent creations. However, the shape of every rock is the logical conclusion for geologists. Professor CHAN Lung-sang is the first generation of geological expert born and raised in Hong Kong. He has been engaging in the studies of Geophysics for over forty years. He deduces the influences which different forces have in topological formation, through observation and research. To him, a one-metre thick rock may have ten thousand years of history inscribed in it; an ordinary rock may contain information of terrestrial history. For example, he once found on the rocks of Tung Ping Chau, the evidence of existence of cyanobacteria, an important creature which helps generate oxygen for the Earth

Apart from the hexagonal volcanic columns, many variegated sea caves have been formed by million years of weathering and marine abrasion on the rocky shores in Sai Kung, which have provided an ideal habitat for a multitude of creatures.

In addition, volcanic and diastrophic activities in the past have contributed abundant mineral resources to Hong Kong, which made the mining industry one of the financial mainstays in Hong Kong back in the day. Although the mining industry has passed its heyday, the old mine caves have transformed into a dark and undisturbed ambience - a survival space for the Ranidae family and bats. In Hong Kong, there are fourteen species of bats even if we only take into account those which are troglobites. The mine cave in Lin Ma Hang, Sha Tau Kok, was even zoned as "Site of Special Scientific Interest" (SSSI) after it was shut down in the 90’s.

Jackie, the apprentice of Professor CHAN, has conducted research on Hong Kong mining industry as a geologist. His dream is to revive the old mine caves, so that public can better understand the history of local mining industry. He believes that both public education and topological preservation are indispensable in protecting the prestigious natural landforms in Hong Kong.